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Vacation photos: Cornwall, England

Our grandmother lives in a teeny tiny fishing village called Polruan. Our first evening there, we had a drinks party on her terrace. She invited her friends of all ages, and we ate smoked salmon and potato chips.Toby loves a good party...We toasted my cousin and her husband, who were celebrating their first wedding anniversary. (Aren't they cute?)And this is the view! Crikey! It was so much fun.During this trip, Toby met his new "cousins" (they are my cousins' daughters) for the first time ever. It was ridiculously endearing to see them all play together. My British aunts referred to them as "the littles," which I loved.We had a few rainy days (not pictured:), but on a particularly sunny afternoon, we took a spectacular boat ride to Lantic Bay, a beach nearby. (That's when we took this family photo, too.)My cousin's husband Nick brought along a bottle of Cornish scrumpy, which is a strong alcoholic cider that tastes just like apple juice.Toby drank too much and passed out. (Kidding.)The English ocean water was freeeeezing but my cousins are brave.One day, we all hiked to visit my grandfather's grave, which is in a lovely countryside church overlooking fields of sheep. My grandmother always brings whiskey (his favorite) to sprinkle over his grave.My awesome sister Lucy carried Toby all the way (uphill). Yay for aunts!Have you ever had a Cornish pasty? It's dough filled with beef, potatoes, carrots, onions and lots of pepper, and you can eat them with one hand. (Originally, they were developed for miners and sailors.) Delish...As with all great vacations, we ate way too much.In the evenings, the yellow light is gorgeous, and we sometimes take walks and chat with sweet old ladies on the street.At the end of each day, we'd just hang out, cook dinner, gossip, play games and drink gin & tonics. I remember how my grandfather used to sometimes call out, in his booming British voice, "Noise level too high!"One evening, my brother made the mistake of dozing off in a chair, so naturally we decided to see how many items we could stack on him before he woke up. (I thought the bottle on his head was especially impressive:)Our final morning, we got up early to leave. We were sad to go but the bright side was seeing the view from the terrace. The morning fog looked foggy and magical--right out of Peter Pan. Polruan, we miss you already! Thank you for having us, Milly! xoxo

190 comments:

how exciting! i love vacation photos! even though they do give me a bit of wanderlust! that fist one is so dreamy! and what an amazing portrait! will check out all the rest! hope you guys have a lovely weekend and beat the heat somehow! xx

I have a random question about taxes. I've been wondering about this for months.

If you post about your trips on your blog, which is the source of your income, do you deduct the expenses of your trip as a business expense? Seems like that would be reasonable from the IRS' perspective, but I don't know if bloggers do that.

anonymous, i'm not sure...i think you maybe could if it was a very work-heavy trip -- but not for a more personal trip like this? i'm not sure, you might want to ask an accountant, who would definitely know better than i would :)

It looks so lovely and chilled - I love hanging out with family and yours looks like so much fun! My grandparents lived in Cornwall and my childhood memories are all wrapped up in playing on the beach opposite St Michael's Mount. My other grandparents lived in Devon - so I was really, really spoilt for beautiful English coasts! Makes me want to take a trip down there again soon ...

gorgeous photos joanna! i'm afraid you may have just sent a horde of noisy american's running for the shores of polruan. but i especially love the photo of toby passed out on the boat! ha! what a wonderful, special time to share with all your family.

I would like so much to travel around the seaside and the countryside in England... This village is really tempting and I love frozen sea!It seems stupid that living in Europe (Belgium then Switzerland), I've never been there (while I travelled to North and South America...). Joanna, Thanks for your blog, my new morning coffee reading! The family/work posts are so true and inspiring, I'm still thinking about them!And all your post about mothering are so... familiar (with my 16 months-old son).Hugs from Zurich

So idyllic!I always think you look like an All American type of gal, but in these photos of you in England you completely look like an English Rose! And Toby is super cute with those little rosey cheeks! xo

what a fantastic trip + super lovely pics. the photo of your brother made me crack up...at our family gatherings, you nap at your own risk too! one time my brother fell asleep, his toenails got painted. the last photo is especially beautiful.

Wow! Absolutely breathtaking. It's funny I felt the need to read "the littles" in a fake british accent. Also, that part about your grandmother bringing whisky to the grave site made me tear up. Maybe it's just the pregnancy hormones. Thanks for sharing. xoxo

Thank you for posting these beautiful photos Joanna. I'm from Cornwall but I'm moving to Portland, Oregon in October and boy will I miss it!*Geeky fact- the knobbly end of the Cornish pasty was so the miners could hold the pasty with their dirty hands and then throw the crust away :) * x

Ah... Cornwall in the summer, how lovely!Reminds me of my trips down to Bournemouth (south coast of england) to my uncle's property when I was living in London. My daughter (she was 2 then) would strip down naked and take a dip in the English seaside, not very proper of her at all! but a priceless memory.What a lovely experience for your family. Toby may not remember exactly everything at this age, but I believe it will still leave a mark on his heart. Isn't it great having relatives in ol' Blighty!? Thanks for sharing :)

i enjoyed these photos so much! i fantasize about visiting cornwall and running into tori amos (she lives there), and then having cream tea with her. that's not crazy at all, is it? p.s. your grandma is the cutest! i love grandmas!

It's awesome to see some snapshots of you and your family. I LOVE the last picture.. I really hope you have that hi-res! Don't you have a nautical theme in your bedroom.... it might match!-ashleyfayeourbklyn.com

What a beautiful place and that view...WOW..There is something about British summers that I simply adore. Glad you had a fantastic time and I bet your gran was over the moon to see Toby:) Kisses, Joanna.

Your vacation looks so lovely, nothing better than a low key family holiday! And that photo of your brother is hilarious!! I'm impressed both by how hard he is sleeping and at your item balancing skills.

Your description of the end-of-the-day activities reminded me so much of vacations at my grandmother's house in South Carolina when I was a kid. The adults (6-10, depending on what families could make the trip) would make dinner and have cocktails while the cousins played games or took a last swim in the river. After dinner we would all play games or go sit out on the dock. There were a few years (age 9-12 maybe) where I was recruited to be the cocktail waitress and would freshen-up everyone's drinks. It made me feel like a grown-up, even though I wasn't drinking.

My grandmother passed away several years ago and the entire family doesn't get together much anymore, but I cherish the memories from those summer vacations.

I'm off to Cornwall for our hols next month and seeing those photo's has got be all excited! I live in Brighton, Sussex in England, so Cornwall isn't so far for me to go ...I love your descriptions of Cornwall, they made me smile. Stuff (like the pasties) aren't probably that known in the US, but here are they are an almost 'everyday' food. Reading this post made me realise what my country is unique for. And that final picture is magical. You're right it is straight out of Peter Pan. Thanks for sharing - it was a joy. x

Extraordinarily perfect. I am continually struck with how very uplifting, inspiring, and love filled your posts are. Thank you for always bringing such happiness, beauty, (and great humor) to the world. Enjoy a lovely weekend!

adorable pictures! do you and your sister still have a close relationship even though she lives across the country? my beloved sister just moved to California for seven years while her husband does his residency (seven years!) i miss her terribly! from these pictures, though, it seems like yall just pick up right where you left off. i hope the same goes for me! thanks for sharing these lovely pictures! xoxox

Oh wow, the scenery, the fun you guys had. I wish you took me along with you! Love the quotes from your grandparents and also the sleeping game. We used to do that to my brother in his bed. With smurfs put in every which where.

My husband's great, great grandfather is from Cornwall. He stowed away in a boat to America when he was sixteen. We've just moved to London with our little one and are dying to find out where he was from so we can go visit! (We're so gung-ho about Cornwall that our daughter's middle name is a traditional Cornish name: Loveday).

Wow, thanks for sharing pictures of your amazing vacation! I what to go there...right now! That little village looks so charming and relaxing. How awesome to have a place to stay and family to see when you go there, it looks like you all had such a great time. :) Your gramma is adorable.

what a GREAT trip! Love all the shots - particularly the lovely food and the piling things on the sleeping bro. I love the reference to the 'littles' we in Australia call kids 'littlies' sometime - very similar. Love it.

What a lovely vacation!! I'm so glad you had fun and that you shared your stories so that we could live vicariously through your adventures :) I hope your summer is going well now that you're back home!!!

i loved these photos, and the thought of calling babies "the littles" is so cute! i might just take it on myself, haha....oh, and your husband in the background pic ,wearing the headphones, is too funny!

Thanks for sharing the lovely photos. They're making me nostalgic for the 3 years I spent in England at college/ uni there. It was a different side of England I experienced, being in land-locked horse country - Warwickshire, but the landscape of England is still absolutely gorgeous and charming.

Looks like a wonderful and beautiful vacation! I just got back from London, and I loved it!!! I know it's not quite the English countryside (although we did spend a day in Windsor/Bath/Wiltshire), but I loved every minute of it!

Adding one more comment to this amazing list seems silly, but I have to ask, since these photos remind me so much of a British programme my folks love - have you seen Dr. Martin? I watch it just drooling over the views and vistas of Cornwall...

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing. My husband's parents live in Falmouth Cornwall and sadly I have never even been...they always come to us as we have two little ones at the moment...this makes me want to go even more...when the time is right I suppose...and I'll have to read your post on travelling with baby again...though mine are almost through the baby stage now (littlest is 2), do you suppose it gets easier?

I wish I was born into your family! I swear I should have been born in England. Sometimes I think it was a very big mistake to that all my ancestors moved to Texas. Oh well! I'll just continue to talk in a an English accent for fun,watch Harry Potter, and dream.

Thanks for the lovely advertisement for my home county of Cornwall, it looks like you had a brilliant time. I married into the Cornish way of life 12 years ago and have never stopped appreciating how lucky I am to live and work in Cornwall, it's the perfect place to be a full time artist. Meanwhile my husband runs his outdoor activity business from the local beaches and he thinks HE has the best job ever (I still think mine's best though, cos in the winter I can work in my pyjamas by the fire, while he still has to go into the freeeeeeezing winter seas!) :)

I just moved back to America from the UK after living there for 3 years with 5 of our 6 children. I miss it. Thank you for sharing this post, your trip looked lovely. PS: I am a mum of identical twins!

really nice post! i'm from barcelona, but i'm living now in south of england (devon) and I enjoy reading about your days here.perfect weather for what I see! (you were so lucky, we're having lots of rainy days here...)

What gorgeous photos, Joanna! I can feel the warm air right through my screen! I was born in Cornwall and my gran sometimes still makes Cornish pasties (vegetarian for me), even though we're all across the other side of the world now. Looks as though you had a simply wonderful holiday.

So beautiful. This last "Peter Pan" photo is just breathtaking. It looks like you really had great time there, and your lovely family reminds me of those sweet&funny big families we have been watching in some uplifting films :) England is gorgeous!

OMG! Looooved the pics, they are amazing. And I really love to see that there are still some people with th same family values as my familly. Almost all of my friends never see their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. It feels so good to know that you're raising little Toby the same way as I was raised (and probably you too). I'd love to have relatives ins other countries, so I could visit, but most of my family lives 10 minuts from my house. (I live in Brazil by the way).

What a lovely trip! And such fantastic photos. My Grandparents were from Padstow in Cornwall - I used to go every year but haven't been back in a while. Seeing that familiar coastline through a fresh pair of eyes has made me feel really nostalgic! Such a special part of the world, thank you for sharing.

I am currently visiting Cornwall too and I found it is an ideal place for fairy tales. I rarely visited a place of such beauty.Your photos are really beautiful, I hope your spent a fantastic holiday!! - Barbara

to. die. for. thanks for sharing your vacation with us...the pics made me relaxed, melancholy for my own family and itchin' to travel! awesome!! i love love the idea of sprinkling a loved one's favorite "spirit" on their grave. so thoughtful and sweet.

This is such a beautiful post - I'm from Falmouth in Cornwall and have never visited Polruan...Weirdly I used to work at the company that made the cyder (Cornish spelling of cider!)you were all drinking...I miss being able to take some home with me on a Friday evening!!

Cornwall is such a lovely, charming place. I would love to go back! My favorite memory was waking up to the sound of rain and seagulls. I also enjoyed your travel post from today! I have travel lust now! :)